China Chronicles January 25, 2013
- Sex video extortion ring busted, 10 more officials sacked
Police in southwest China's Chongqing municipality have broken up a criminal ring suspected of using secretly filmed sex videos to extort officials, local authorities said Thursday.
In the latest development in a sex video scandal that has made a splash online and led to the sacking of a district official last year, government sources said ten other officials have been removed from their posts for allegedly appearing in such videos.
The ten officials include county- and district-level officials serving in local government departments or Communist Party of China (CPC) branches, as well as executives of state-owned enterprises.
A sex video featuring one official who was later confirmed to be CPC Secretary of Chongqing's Beibei district Lei Zhengfu was widely circulated online in November.
Lei was sacked days later following an investigation.
The Chongqing Municipal Committee for Discipline Inspection found that the ring had hired women to seduce local officials, covertly filmed their sexual acts and used the videos as tools of extortion.
Investigations by the local police found that from 2008 to 2009, Xiao Ye, a suspect and a key member of the network, blackmailed the officials, after surreptitiously shooting video of them having sex with women arranged by Xiao.
A sex video featuring one official, who was later confirmed to be Lei Zhengfu, Party chief of the CPC Beibei District Committee, was widely circulated online in late November.
Lei was sacked days later following an investigation. - Chongqing police bust sex video extortion ring, 10 more officials sacked
POLICE in southwest China's Chongqing municipality have broken up a criminal ring suspected of using secretly filmed sex videos to extort officials, local authorities said Thursday.
In the latest development in a sex video scandal that has made a splash online and led to the sacking of a district official last year, government sources said ten other officials have been removed from their posts for allegedly appearing in such videos.
The ten officials include county- and district-level officials serving in local government departments or Communist Party of China (CPC) branches, as well as executives of state-owned enterprises.
A sex video featuring one official who was later confirmed to be CPC Secretary of Chongqing's Beibei district Lei Zhengfu was widely circulated online in November.
Lei was sacked days later following an investigation.
The Chongqing Municipal Committee for Discipline Inspection found that the ring had hired women to seduce local officials, covertly filmed their sexual acts and used the videos as tools of extortion.
Investigations by the local police found that from 2008 to 2009, Xiao Ye, a suspect and a key member of the network, blackmailed the officials, after surreptitiously shooting video of them having sex with women arranged by Xiao.
A sex video featuring one official, who was later confirmed to be Lei Zhengfu, Party chief of the CPC Beibei District Committee, was widely circulated online in late November.
Lei was sacked days later following an investigation.
- Water duel after vessel in Diaoyu blockade
A FISHING boat with Taiwan activists headed for the Diaoyu Islands turned back yesterday after coast guard vessels from Taiwan and Japan converged and dueled with water cannon.
The boat, carrying four activists and three other people, gave up a plan to land on the East China Sea islands after being blocked by Japanese coast guard vessels as it sailed within 17 nautical miles of the archipelago.
Eight Japanese ships obstructed the vessel by making waves and emitting black smoke, and later spraying water toward it. Taiwan's coast guard ships responded with water spray, LED signals and warned the Japanese from obstructing the vessel.
"We fired water cannon at each other," Taiwan's coast guard spokesman Shih Yi-che said of the confrontation.
As the standoff unfolded, three surveillance vessels from China's mainland were positioned a few nautical miles off, the Taiwan coast guard said.
It said it had sent a radio message to the three mainland ships to keep their distance in order not to complicate matters.
The Japanese coast guard confirmed it took action after encountering the Taiwan vessel. "Our patrol boat carried out restrictions on the vessel such as blocking its path and discharging water," it said in a statement.
The activists had hoped to place a statue of the Goddess of the Sea on the islands to protect Taiwan fishermen in the area.
Coast guard vessels from Japan and Taiwan exchanged water cannon barrages in September after dozens of Taiwan boats were escorted by patrol ships into the islands' waters.
- Water duel after vesselin Diaoyu blockade
A FISHING boat with Taiwan activists headed for the Diaoyu Islands turned back yesterday after coast guard vessels from Taiwan and Japan converged and dueled with water cannon.
The boat, carrying four activists and three other people, gave up a plan to land on the East China Sea islands after being blocked by Japanese coast guard vessels as it sailed within 17 nautical miles of the archipelago.
Eight Japanese ships obstructed the vessel by making waves and emitting black smoke, and later spraying water toward it. Taiwan's coast guard ships responded with water spray, LED signals and warned the Japanese from obstructing the vessel.
"We fired water cannon at each other," Taiwan's coast guard spokesman Shih Yi-che said of the confrontation.
As the standoff unfolded, three surveillance vessels from China's mainland were positioned a few nautical miles off, the Taiwan coast guard said.
It said it had sent a radio message to the three mainland ships to keep their distance in order not to complicate matters.
The Japanese coast guard confirmed it took action after encountering the Taiwan vessel. "Our patrol boat carried out restrictions on the vessel such as blocking its path and discharging water," it said in a statement.
The activists had hoped to place a statue of the Goddess of the Sea on the islands to protect Taiwan fishermen in the area.
Coast guard vessels from Japan and Taiwan exchanged water cannon barrages in September after dozens of Taiwan boats were escorted by patrol ships into the islands' waters.
- 'House sister' in homes probe
THE case of a "house sister," a woman alleged to have illegally amassed more than 20 homes using multiple identities, will be fully investigated, China's Ministry of Public Security said yesterday.
The ministry has set up a special team to supervise the investigation into how Gong Ai'ai, who is said to have at least two identities and hukou, had come to own the houses in Beijing worth more than 1 billion yuan (US$159 million).
China's property market controls restrict individuals buying multiple homes, but "ghost" identities can help householders evade restrictions.
Gong's identities have raised concern over possible corruption, such as unfair distribution of government-subsidized affordable housing and officials' evasion of personal property supervision.
Gong was dubbed a "house sister" by netizens after details were posted online.
A ministry statement said Gong first registered as a resident in the town of Shenmu in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. She later registered identities in two counties of neighboring Shanxi Province and Beijing between 2004 and 2008.
Some of her properties were purchased under the name of Gong Xianxia, a name registered in fake records.
One of the fake identities was revoked early last year, the ministry's statement said. The ministry promised a thorough investigation and serious punishment for those involved, and called for a streamlining of the household registration and identity issuing system to make similar offenses less likely in future.
Authorities in Shenmu County have suspended three police officers, including the deputy head of the county police department, and a government official who formerly served as a policeman there.
A police officer in Beijing suspected of handling Gong's residence registration in the capital was suspended yesterday pending further investigation, according to the People's Daily website.
The Beijing Public Security Bureau also sealed Gong's apartments and cars in the ci! ty for criminal investigation and canceled her hukou there, the website report said.
Hukou is a Chinese permanent residence registration and personal identification system governed by public security departments. In China, an individual can only have one legitimate identity and hukou.
Zhai Zhenfeng, a housing administrative official in central China's Henan Province, was arrested earlier this month after he and his family members were found to have dual hukou and owned 31 houses.
Zhai's wife is said to have taken advantage of his position and sold houses built under the government's affordable housing scheme.
Such cases cause outrage as many people struggle to pay for just one home.
Gong has said her houses were purchased with her legal income.
Hong Daode, a professor with the China University of Political Science and Law, said that Gong and relevant police officers' acts may constitute criminal offenses.
In addition to the identity certificate counterfeiting, which is a criminal offense, the police officers should also be investigated for dereliction of duty, Hong told China National Radio.
"Even if the police say they are not complicit in Gong's offense, they may be held accountable for failure to properly review her identity information before granting the ID cards and hukou," he said.
The scandals also indicate that the current household registration system needs improving, said Yang Hongshan, a professor with the School of Public Administration of the Renmin University of China.
In its statement, the ministry said it has launched a special campaign in the identity and hukou administrative system to uncover fake and duplicate identity records.
Police officers will be sacked if they are found responsible for illegal hukou registration and issuing false identities, the statement added.
- Family of officials in residency investigation
THREE government officials in north China's Shanxi Province, all members of the same family, are being investigated after one was found to have two hukou, or residency permits, while another owned 11 houses.
Zhang Yan, an official with the Party disciplinary watchdog in Yuncheng City, had one hukou in Yuncheng and another in Beijing under the pseudonym of Dong Yan, yesterday's Beijing Times reported.
Zhang's husband, Sun Hongjun, who was sacked as police chief in Xiaxian County last February, helped her get a fake hukou during his term in order to facilitate buying houses and transfer capital, a whistleblower's online post said.
Zhang is said to live in a residential complex in Beijing's Zhongguancun area, but neighbors said they rarely saw the family, the newspaper reported.
The whistleblower also said that Zhang's father-in-law, Sun Taiping, who was once the city's finance bureau director, owned 11 houses in China, at least two of them in Beijing.
According to the online posts, he asked a coal transportation company to buy him a villa worth more than 4 million yuan (US$643,200) in Sanya, Hainan Province. It was also claimed that he coerced several companies to send vehicles, including an 800,000-yuan Toyota MPV, to his children for long-term use.
Both Beijing and Yuncheng officials declined to comment.
- Emissions falling but a tough task ahead
ENVIRONMENT Minister Zhou Shengxian said yesterday that emissions of four major pollutants dropped last year and should fall by a similar level this year, but admitted the country faced a tough task in trying to end chronic air pollution.
Emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, chemical oxygen and ammonia nitrogen all recorded year-on-year falls of 2 percent in 2012 and were expected to drop by the same degree this year, or even faster, Zhou said.
"To cope with an air quality crisis, contingency measures will be adopted, such as suspending or limiting the production of certain vehicles and limiting emissions and car usage," he told a national meeting in Beijing.
"The ministry will also ban the operation of vehicles registered before 2005 under exhaust emissions requirements ... and efforts will be made to improve the quality of gasoline and diesel."
But Zhou said China "faces a long battle" in controlling what is known as PM2.5 intensity, which measures particulate matter in the air with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less.
Pollution levels in Beijing and many other Chinese cities regularly exceed 500 on that index. A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organization recommends a daily level of no more than 20.
The ministry had set timetables for cities plagued by air pollution, Zhou said.
Cities where average air pollution levels are 15 percent higher than the national standard or less should work to bring the levels to standard by 2015.
Cities with air pollution 30 percent above the national standard or higher should try to meet those standards by 2030.
Smoke from factories and heating plants, winds blowing in from the Gobi Desert and fumes from millions of vehicles can combine to blanket northern Chinese cities in a pungent shroud for days on end.
The government has promised repeatedly to resolve the problem, and in recent days has unveiled new measures, including taking 180,000 old vehicles off the! road in Beijing this year and controlling the "excessive" growth of new car sales in the city.
Zhou vowed to press for including PM2.5 in the country's major pollutant monitoring and measuring system.
This year the country will start monitoring six major pollutant indexes, including PM2.5, in 113 cities on the state environmental protection list, he said.
Currently, the monitoring of four major pollutants as well as PM2.5 and ozone (O3) are conducted in four municipalities, 27 provincial capitals, and three key regions - east China's Yangtze River Delta, south China's Pearl River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area in the north.
By 2015, the ministry aims to reduce PM2.5 intensity in the three key regions by 6 percent a year, he said.
- Fishing boat detained
A Chinese fishing boat was detained by Japanese authorities yesterday afternoon for unauthorized fishing in waters around Nagasaki Prefecture in southwestern Japan, Chinese Consulate General in Fukuoka said.
The boat, registered in China's Zhejiang Province, was detained in the exclusive economic waters. There were eight Chinese crew members on board when the boat was caught.
- Parents furious at their children 'used as guinea pigs'
ANGRY parents have accused a township health service center in Taixing, Jiangsu Province, of using their children as guinea pigs after it was found to have injected more than 100 of them with vaccines still under clinical trial.
Both the health center in Fenjie Town and the Taixing City Disease Control Center admitted that the vaccine was not yet on the market but insisted that the trial had been approved by parents, the Modern Express reported yesterday.
However, parents said they had no idea it was a trial when their children took part in January last year.
Li Wei said the center had asked him to bring his two-year-old daughter to have a free hand-foot-and-mouth disease vaccine a year ago. He understood that 200 children would be taking part in the inoculation program.
"I felt confused as I was told my daughter needed to have blood tests regularly after the inoculation," Li said.
Li told the newspaper that his daughter had tested positive in two blood tests, but the newspaper did not specify what the tests were for.
He told reporters he searched online and found that the vaccine had not been approved for use but was still under clinical trial.
Another parent, Fang Yun, told the newspaper that her daughter had contracted hand-foot-and-mouth disease two months ago and said a worker at the center had told her secretly that the vaccine had some problems.
"No one ever told me it was a trial," Fang said.
An official surnamed Gu at the center told the newspaper the program was nationwide and the center was just one of many places where it was carried out. The trial was conducted with the approval of parents, Gu added.
Yao Genhong, an official with the disease control center, said parents had all signed on agreements for the project, but he failed to provide any documentation when asked.
- Wife sacked amid graft probe
THE wife of the dismissed deputy Party secretary of southwestern Sichuan Province has been removed from her position at the Chengdu branch of the Red Cross Society of China.
An unnamed official with Chengdu Red Cross said Qu Songzhi had not been at work since her husband Li Chuncheng was put under investigation.
Li was removed from his positions for suspected "serious discipline violations" only one month after he was also elected a non-voting member of the Chinese Communist Party's central committee during the 18th Party National Congress last November. Li is currently under investigation by the Party's discipline department.
Chengdu government officials said Qu was a hospital worker before her husband was appointed Chengdu City Party chief in 2003. She quickly gained several promotions afterwards to become a section chief in the city health bureau.
She became Party secretary of Chengdu Red Cross in 2009.
On Weibo.com, Shen Yong, who claimed he was a police officer, published six posts about Li, calling him "Li Chaicheng," meaning destroyer of cities.
In his online posts, Shen claimed that Li had "bought" his posts, and to recoup his outlay, had created a department and promoted his wife.
Li is said to be the most senior official to be investigated for corruption since Xi Jinping became the Party's leader.
Xi has launched a campaign against corruption also targeting the petty bureaucracy and infractions of low-ranking officials who are the bane of many people's everyday lives.
- Tibetan man arrested for intentional homicide
A Tibetan man who allegedly tried to convince another Tibetan to self-immolate last November was arrested, police said yesterday.
Police in Tongren County in Qinghai Province said they thwarted a self-immolation attempt last year by 25-year-old monk Drolma Je after being told that the man had stored gasoline in a hotel room.
A probe into Drolma Je's case has led to the arrest of Phagpa, a 27-year-old man who allegedly encouraged Drolma Je to commit self-immolation, a police report said.
The report said Phagpa had maintained close contact with key members of the "Tibetan Youth Congress" of the Dalai Lama clique, exchanging information with and taking orders from them via the Internet.
Phagpa studied in India at an institution established by the Dalai Lama clique for training separatists in June 2005.
After returning to China in September 2011, he worked to spread pro-independence ideas among local students while working as a teacher at an orphanage, the report said.
The report, citing Drolma Je's confession, said Phagpa made several attempts to convince Drolma Je to self-immolate between June and July 2012, assuring him that photos of the self-immolator would be spread globally by organizations in India.
"He claimed that 'the international community will pay attention if more people commit self-immolation,"' the report said, citing Drolma Je.
Police also found that Phagpa is a member of the illegal "Snow Tradition Cultural Service Group." He and other members of the group have attended funerals of previous self-immolators, praising them as role models and donating money to their relatives.
Phagpa was arrested on a charge of intentional homicide and Drolma Je on a charge of jeopardizing public security.
Multiple Tibetan self-immolations have occurred in western China's Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan provinces in recent months.
- 澳門，議事亭前地
- Dumping toxic waste from a printing company into a creek / Huizhou District, Huangshan / Anhui Province / PR China
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View Awards Count - Taiwanese ships return without reaching Diaoyu Islets
A Taiwanese fishing boat and four coast guard ships returned from contiguous waters of the Diaoyu Islands today without reaching the islands, local media reported.
To bring a sea goddess statue to the islands, the boat, named "Happy Family" in English, left Taiwan early this morning and sailed to the contiguous zone at around 11: 05am with the four guarding ships.
The five vessels returned at about 1pm as they were impeded by ships of Japanese Coast Guard, according to Japan's broadcaster NHK.
Sino-Japanese tensions have boiled over after Japan "purchased" Diaoyu Islands in September in 2012 despite opposition from the Chinese government. Local authorities in Taiwan have also protested the move. - Taiwanese ships return without reaching Diaoyu Islets
A Taiwanese fishing boat and four coast guard ships returned from contiguous waters of the Diaoyu Islands today without reaching the islands, local media reported.
To bring a sea goddess statue to the islands, the boat, named "Happy Family" in English, left Taiwan early this morning and sailed to the contiguous zone at around 11: 05am with the four guarding ships.
The five vessels returned at about 1pm as they were impeded by ships of Japanese Coast Guard, according to Japan's broadcaster NHK.
Sino-Japanese tensions have boiled over after Japan "purchased" Diaoyu Islands in September in 2012 despite opposition from the Chinese government. Local authorities in Taiwan have also protested the move. - Cloud sea
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